J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Tower among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Tower among Mountains ?in the Dolomites’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 56 Recto:
A Tower among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840
D32371
Turner Bequest CCCXX 56
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Partial watermark ‘J H’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘56’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 56’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. There appears to be a tower in the valley towards the bottom left. The peak of the jagged central mountain is continued across the gutter on folio 55 verso opposite (D32370).
A long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (with occasional identifications and transcriptions of the place names marked by the artist), lies between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411).1 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.2
1
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.
2
See also Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.65, 81 note 9.
Technical notes:
There is an irregular brown stain at the bottom right, which has soaked through from the verso (D32372).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Tower among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-tower-among-mountains-in-the-dolomites-r1196605, accessed 19 September 2024.